Hunter, Warrior, Commander

by Andrew Maclure

  Sah Lee didn’t wait for the Major to finish speaking. She sprinted forward for the door, following directions from her AI. Once out of sight of the rest of the soldiers, it told her to head straight towards a blank wall on the left and fire her GSA20 particle beam weapon at the dots on the wall it overlaid on her vision. At the last moment she turned to the side and hit the wall with her shoulder and crashed through the partition wall, having severed all the structural parts in a rough rectangle just big enough for her to pass through. She kept running to a partially closed door leading to a narrow corridor and squeezed through it. Once in the corridor, she moved more carefully and silently. The visual feed she was getting from Si’ir Monn’s drone abruptly cut off. “Shit! Have the hostiles disabled it?” she asked her AI.

  “No, I have. How do you plan to take those hostiles down?”

  “With those small sticky grenades of yours of course.”

  “Which we can’t let your comrades see. I have also disrupted the hostiles communications, degrading them for some time and they have now lost them altogether. It would be best if the other hostiles don’t see or hear what’s going to happen to these. There is a partially open door into a workshop on the left twenty meters in front. The hostiles will enter the room from the other side just before you get there. You don’t need your GSA20 anymore, clip it to your backpack and take three grenades off your belt. You need to get this done quickly.”

  “I’m not an idiot! I need to get back in time to go after the other three.”

  “Why do you feel the need to go after the other three? Si’ir Monn is quite capable of handling them.”

  “Apart from the fact that this is the first chance I’ve had to get revenge on some of those bastard outcasts, I want to make a reputation for myself.” she answered with a mirthless smile.

  Sah Lee moved silently to the door, and with a view of the interior of the workshop from her AI’s cloaked drone could see the three hostiles moving towards an open door at the far end. She slipped through and swiftly threw a grenade at each of them. The grenades stuck to them for a moment and then detonated simultaneously with a sound like a muffled gunshot. All three dropped to the floor dead before they had even registered Sah Lee’s presence.

  “Quickest route back!” she demanded of her AI. Following its directions, she sprinted through the workshop, through a laboratory containing a long piece of equipment running the entire length of the room, out into a short corridor with wide-open doors into small offices and into a meeting room with a long table with Tranossian sitting ramps on both sides. It was quicker to go over the table rather than round it, so she leapt on to it and ran its length. She jumped off the end and ran through the open door at the end to be faced by Si’ir Monn and two soldiers with him bringing their weapons up at her.

  “We nearly shot you! You should have told us you were coming through there!” Si’ir Monn yelled at her. Then more calmly, “You’re still alive anyway. I guess you couldn’t find them after they disabled our drone. Get two troopers to go with you and go hunt them down. We’ve still got eyes on the other three, we’re going after them now.”

  “I’ve completed my mission and I’m ready to go after the others.”

  “How did you find them so quick! And what the fuck did you do to them!”

  “I stumbled on them and took them by surprise. I was just lucky.”

  “Just lucky huh?” he paused. “Go on. You’d better not fail; my balls are on the line.”

  Sah Lee didn’t know what he meant by that, but he seemed to think the risk of losing components of some kind of game would be a very bad thing. She sprinted back through the door she had first exited from, but instead of crashing through a wall this time, instructed by her AI she continued toward the closed door at the end.

  “Fire your GSA20 at the dots I’ve put on the wall.”

  “Why?” Sah Lee asked as she pulled the weapon from its clip on her backpack.

  “There is a failsafe mechanism in there which allows the door to be manually slid open when there is no power if you have a key. Which we don’t.”

  Sah Lee fired at the dots as she ran to the door, asking: “Why didn’t you tell me before! It would have made progress easier for all of us!”

  “That information is not available to normal AI’s, I don’t want to draw attention to my capabilities.”

  “You’re abnormal?”

  “Yes, I thought that was obvious.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a compliment.” she said, sliding the door open.

  “I didn’t take it as one. Take the door on the right.”

  She ran diagonally across the room full of desks and seating ramps, jumping over a dead Tranossian laying on its back, exposing its pale, ribbed underside, legs folded into itself in death. Again, she fired at dots next to the door that her AI had overlaid on her vision and slid the door open. She was at the end of a short corridor with a closed door a few meters ahead on her left and another closed door at the other end.

  “They are in the middle of the room through the door at the end.”

  Sah Lee could see them on a crackly visual feed from one of Si’ir Monn’s crawlers that was partially obscured by what looked like a table leg. They were huddled together. It looked like they were planning what they were going to do next. Sah Lee reached into her backpack and pulled out a standard army issue grenade and held it in her left hand while aiming her GSA20 at wall next to the door.

  “Door!” she told her AI; it put dots over the release mechanism and her GSA20 silently punched holes through the wall into the override lock, releasing the door.

  She clipped her GSA20 onto her backpack. Holding the grenade in her right hand, she pulled three of the small sticky grenades from the belt over her shoulder and held them in her left hand. All she needed now were two free hands to slide the door open. She paused for a moment and the thought flashed through her mind that it would be helpful if she had an extra pair of arms like Ker Din Ser Forn. She crouched down and put the grenades on the floor at her feet. Hoping the hostiles wouldn’t notice, she slowly slid the door open just enough to get through. Picking the grenades up she crept through the door in a half crouch. She told her AI to give her a feed from its drone, so she could orient herself with the hostiles. They seemed to be arguing with each other and hadn’t noticed the door opening. A bench with laboratory equipment on it hid her from their view.

  “Have you killed the crawler feed yet?” she asked her AI.

  “Not yet. I will when the time is right.”

  Sah Lee slowly stood, then threw the army grenade into the group of hostiles. The grenade hit one in the chest and dropped to the floor between them before detonating. The blast rocked them back on their feet and depleted their field armor. It did them no real damage, but it took them by surprise. While they were disorientated and confused, Sah Lee threw the three small grenades which stuck to them, then detonated. The hostiles dropped to the floor, dead.

  Sah Lee ran to the end of the room and squeezed through the partially open door into another large meeting room and ran across the table. She expected that there would have been more laboratories and fewer offices and meeting rooms. The door at the end was closed, so she shot out the release mechanism and slid the door open. As the door slid out she saw a group of soldiers swing round and open fire on her. Five bullets and two GSA20 shots hit her before she could duck for cover behind the door.

  “Stop shooting you morons! It’s me. Corporal Sah Lee!”

  Chapter Seventy Nine

  A Word From The Major

  As the firing stopped, she heard the sound of heavy feet running towards the door. Si’ir Monn burst into the room.

  “What the fuck are you doing here? There are at least two troopers out there who have shit themselves! You’re supposed to be hunting the other three hostiles and we’ve lost them now, the fucking crawler’s died!”

  “They’re all dead.” she snapped. “And I would be too if those soldiers were better
shots. It might have been my grenade that broke the crawler, although the feed was patchy before I attacked the hostiles.”

  “You’ve killed them.” He stated.

  “Yes. That’s what I went there for.”

  Si’ir Monn shook his head and, with a stern expression on his face stomped off to the Major. They spoke for a few moments, then Si’ir Monn called the troops to join him. The Major came over to Sah Lee.

  “Corporal, you appear to have neutralized both sets of hostiles and returned in roughly the time I would expect a squad to locate and engage one of them.”

  “Yes Sir. I was lucky and…”

  The Major interrupted. “That’s enough soldier. I’ve told you I don’t believe in luck and I’m not convinced I’d get the full story from you anyway. You do realize I could insist on getting the recording of both engagements from your AI?”

  Sah Lee swallowed nervously. “Yes, Sir.”

  “However,” he continued, “I’m more interested in the results than the means. Well done Corporal. We could do with more like you.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking Sir, Si’ir Monn didn’t look pleased. What did he say to you?”

  “Most of it wasn’t repeatable, but he suggested I talk to you about how we might secure the hostages before we attack the remaining hostiles, when the only way to get to them is through the hostiles fortification.”

  “Really? I mean, OK Sir. I’d like to scout the area first though.”

  “You are not a one-person army Corporal. Take a team with you.”

  “With all due respect Sir…”

  “Those words always precede a statement pointing out the opinion that I am an idiot.” the Major said. “Choose your words carefully, soldier.”

  “No Sir, I don’t think that. I will use my hunting skills to scout the area, it’s the same as stalking prey. I always did that with a partner, sometimes several, but those were people I had hunted with for years. I know some soldiers here, but I have never hunted with them. I would be more effective by myself.”

  The Major pursed his lips and held her gaze for several long moments. “Very well Corporal. When we get back to base, I want a plan from you on how we ensure this doesn’t happen again. Report to Sergeant Si’ir Monnen Dak and make sure that you and his troops don’t trip over each other again.”

  “Yes Sir!” Sah Lee turned and jogged over to join Si’ir Monn and the rest of the troops.

  “Good of you to join us Corporal.” he said with heavy sarcasm. To the others, he said: “Fall out. Make sure your weapons are ready and those with KE weapons have full magazines. We are about to have a bastard of a fire fight. We outnumber them, which makes a change, but they are in a good defensive position.”

  He turned to Sah Lee. “Have you got a plan?”

  “No Sir, not yet. I've got an idea, but I need to scout their position first.”

  “Good. And you can drop the ‘Sir’ crap when it’s just the two of us talking. Do you want me to come with you when you do your scouting?”

  “No thank you Sir, I mean, Si’ir Monn. I can move more quickly and quietly by myself. You seemed angry when I got back. I’m sorry if I have done something to offend you Sir. Si’ir Monn.”

  “You know what you did to make me angry?” he grinned and without waiting for her to answer, he continued, “Two things, first you completed that mission faster than I could have, and second, I didn’t know you could. You seem to have combined your hunting skills and your talent for fighting and become a killing machine. You’ve nothing to be sorry about.”

  “Have you got any more demolition charges?”

  “No, I brought six. I used one, you used five.”

  “Do we have many grenades?”

  “Plenty. I can see you’ve got some gaps on the belt with those stupid little grenades you brought. You must have found a use for them. Anything else?”

  “Your KE weapon doesn’t look like the army FKE42, it looks bigger and heavier.”

  “Yeah, it’s a heavier caliber assault weapon, an RKE15. That means it’s got a bigger, heavier bullet that carries more kinetic energy, so it hits a lot harder.”

  “Good. How many have we got with us?”

  “Seven, including mine. Why?”

  “Just thinking. I’m going to check the hostiles disposition.”

  “Don’t take too long and don’t get killed.”

  Chapter Eighty

  Reconnoiter

  Sah Lee ran back through the door at the end of the room into the admin area. There were four soldiers inside guarding the door, in case the hostiles launched an attack, however unlikely that might seem. She headed straight for the hole in the wall on the left which she had made earlier.

  “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m going to get into the roof space and travel across that. I need to pile up furniture and then shoot a hole through the ceiling.”

  “That’s a good plan and you could shoot a hole in the ceiling or you could use the access hatch.”

  A green dot appeared in the center of Sah Lee’s vision and started to drift upwards. Her eyes followed the dot as it reached the ceiling and led to a large hatch.

  “That’s convenient. Is there a ladder in there?”

  “Yes, a Tranossian sized one, but without power it won’t deploy, so you still need to arrange furniture to get you up there. The hatch should open easily, lift and slide the cover, it runs on rollers in tracks. It’s all on the building plans. There is a walkway next to it that runs the length of the building. You know how to get through the bulkhead doors.”

  Sah Lee dragged a desk underneath the hatch and got a sitting ramp on top of it. Standing on top of the ramp she could easily reach the hatch. “Sweep the roof space for drones or surveillance devices please.”

  “I have already done that, it is clear. The outcasts haven’t thought about it. I have a drone in with the hostages and another with the main group of seven in the office leading to it.”

  Sah Lee reached up and pushed the hatch up. Her AI put a green arrow on the hatch to show the direction to slide it, which Sah Lee thought was unnecessary as there were only four possible directions it could move in. She pulled herself up - which even with her backpack and extreme environment suit was easy in the low gravity of Barden Three Four. There was little light in the roof space, but her eyesight was adapted for hunting in near darkness and her AI did something to enhance her night vision even more, so she could see well enough to run along the walkway. It took only seconds to open the bulkhead doors with the emergency lever on the walls next to them. Her AI gave her a heads-up display of her progress on a schematic map of the research station, so she knew exactly where she was.

  When she got to the ceiling area above where the hostages were being held she knelt on the walkway and looked down. The cloaked drone in the room moved to the ceiling just below her head so the video feed from it made it appear to Sah Lee as if she was looking straight through the ceiling into the room. There were a lot of the large beetle-like Tranossians crowded into one corner of the room. Her AI informed her that there were one hundred and one, which with the seven bodies found earlier and the one Sah Lee found on the way to the second set of hostiles meant that all the survivors were here. Four hostiles stood facing them. They each held RX4040 assault weapons and wore grenade belts over their shoulders.

  The scenario seemed to Sah Lee to be similar to the exercise on Betzel, but with more players, live ammunition and real, live hostages. If things went wrong, a lot of innocent people would die. She knew what she had to do.

  Chapter Eighty One

  Executing The Plan

  Sah Lee outlined her plan to Major Erret San Mer, Sergeant Si’ir Mon and Por Aruf.

  Por Aruf spoke first. “You have shown you have exceptional abilities Corporal Sah Lee, but what you are planning does not seem achievable. If you fail in your part, we would lose all the hostages. We need to rethink this plan completely.”

  The Major nodded.
“Sergeant, your comments.”

  Si’ir Monn spoke: “This is similar to the successful exercise on Betzel, but it’s harder and there is more at risk. I’d like to have a private conversation with the Corporal before passing judgment Sir.”

  “On the face of it, the plan sounds outlandish. If you hadn’t dealt with the two groups of hostiles so efficiently, I would have dismissed it out of hand, but Corporal Por Aruf has a good point. The stakes are very high. The lives of one hundred Tranossian hostages depend on you executing your part of the plan perfectly. I will consider your plan and consult Sergeant Si’ir Monnen Dak after he has had his private talk with you. We have time to plan this properly, we’ll use it wisely. We’ll reconvene in half an hour.” He left the three of them standing together and went to talk to the troops checking their weapons.

  Por Aruf put her arm round Sah Lee’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I spoke against your plan Sah Lee, but you are so young and so new to this. I am afraid for you as well as for the mission.”

  Sah Lee smiled and hugged her. “I know you like to mother me, Por Aruf, but you must treat me like any other soldier when we are on a mission. I’ll be fine, but I’m afraid for you too.”

  “If I may interrupt this family conference?” Si’ir Monn said with his customary sarcasm. Por Aruf took the hint and left. “How do you propose to deal with the four hostiles guarding the hostages? You can’t shoot them in the time available. They've got field armor and even if you collapse them, the civilian extreme environment suits they’re all wearing will give them some protection from grenades - apart from the fact that fragmentation grenades would kill some hostages and injure more. Even your unarmed combat skills can’t deal with the hostiles quickly, their extreme environment suits will protect them from your fighting moves. You might be able to break their necks if they cooperate and are happy to wait their turn, but you’re unlikely to persuade them to do that. But you know that, you’ve fought with them already and managed to kill them unnaturally fast. I’ve seen the images of the wounds from the dead hostiles from the team I sent to check them, and they are not made by unarmed combat or any kind of weapon I’m familiar with.”